Catching Up

CAN'T TURN YOUR BACK FOR A MINUTE!
Geez, I sneak away for some quality time with the little woman for our 42nd wedding anniversary and the wheels begin to come off around here!

Upon my return Monday I found a few minutes to go online to catch up and found some very interesting items awaiting me.

QUACH'S CANDIDACY SQUASHED
First, there is the article about Assemblyman Van Tran's right-hand man, Andy Quach, getting tanked - with a blood alcohol level of .26 (three times the legal limit) - and smashing his car into another car, a power pole and a building and knocking out power to 300 homes! According to news reports, Tran himself came close to getting arrested as he tried to intervene during the processing of his friend at the scene. Quach was to be a contender in the race with our young jailer/mayor, Allan Mansoor, for Tran's Assembly seat. Looks like that race got just a little easier for our easily-led mayor.

BEVER BLOGS BUFFOONERY
Then, there is the article Alan Blank wrote in the Daily Pilot last week, HERE, about Costa Mesa employees taking furloughs generated lots of flack on the DP Blog. Among the many familiar names posting long, long entries was our very own formerly-pigtailed councilman, Eric Bever. He defended his position on the votes at the recent council meeting wherein he voted NO! to almost every item having to do with the negotiated budget issues. He apparently thinks that the employee unions should have taken a flat 5% pay cut instead of 104 hours of unpaid time - the fiscal impact is the same.

HE SHOULD PAY ATTENTION
Now, I understand Bever's view, but I wonder if he understands the position of the unions. Word has it that he was absent from almost all the sessions where negotiations took place or were discussed. Maybe if he'd pay a little more attention to his job as councilman he'd actually be in a position to make an informed vote, not just some gut reaction in a fit of pique. As I type this the comment thread on that article is at 54 and counting... very interesting.

GOOD GOD, WENDY!
And then there is the issue that Wendy Leece is going to present at the council study session on Tuesday! She apparently wants the city to fork over enough cash - maybe as much as $3,500 - to place a plaque somewhere in the council chambers proclaiming, "In God We Trust". You know, I'm not really surprised at this. All you folks who voted for Wendy knew what you were getting. It was inevitable that, somehow, she was going to attempt to insert her religious beliefs into her job as a council member. What astounds me is her absolutely abysmal timing! This is an unnecessary distraction for our city leaders at this moment in time.

LOBDELL CHIMES IN
There are some interesting viewpoints on this issue, one of which is HERE, from former Daily Pilot Editor and current Co-Publisher of the recently-launched Daily Voice, William Lobdell's take on this subject. He's the author of, "Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America - and Found Unexpected Peace."

MAYBE WENDY'S RIGHT...
Lobdell is apparently willing to cut Wendy some slack, but many of those posting comments on the Daily Pilot article are not, HERE. But maybe Wendy has a point. Based on some of their actions in recent years, maybe this current City Council needs a little reminder of some of the cornerstone values of Christianity - like tolerance, for example. It might work better, though, if - every time a council member votes to disenfranchise a member of a minority in our city - a big mallet would drop from the ceiling and give him or her a big whack on the skull. I can see it now... "I'm sorry, Mr. Bautista, but we want you to change the name of your basketball league to get rid of that nasty, offensive 'Aztec' reference"... Whack! A new lump on the skull of the mayor! I don't think a simple little plaque with a motto on it will do the trick.

MAYBE PLURAL?
On the other hand, I'm a little concerned about just what this plaque will say. Since we are rapidly becoming a very diverse nation, in which sizable chunks of our population do not, in fact, worship God. What about Greek gods, Hindu gods, Norse gods, Roman gods? You get the picture. Maybe the plaque should say, "In Gods We Trust", and cover all the bases.

OR A HIGH-TECH CRAWL?
And, since we're a high-tech kind of place, maybe we don't need a plaque at all. We can take an idea from the news media and include a big, running scroll across the council dais that says, "In God We Trust....In God We Trust....In God We Trust..." in big, red illuminated letters. Wouldn't that be cool?! Even better, every time the word "God" passed in front of Wendy Leece's position on the dais a big halo would light up around her head!

FULL AGENDA AT THE STUDY SESSION...
Tuesday is going to be an interesting day for the City Council. They have the aforementioned Study Session at 4:30, in which they will hear about John Wayne Airport, Local Agency Formation of Orange County and have the new city website previewed - in addition to Wendy's plans for a religious overlay for our city.

THEN BAD NEWS FOR THE REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY...
Then they adjourn to a meeting of the Redevelopment Agency - the City Council in a fancy dress - at which they will undoubtedly hear how the current state budget crisis is going to hamstring redevelopment agencies state-wide.

AND THEN A SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING
And then they will convene a special City Council meeting at which the new Memorandum of Understanding with the Costa Mesa firefighters will be discussed. It's going to be a very, very interesting afternoon and evening.

I guess I'm just going to have to stick closer to home from now on...

Demise of Print Journalism

DISINTEGRATION OF PRINT MEDIA
Those of us living here in sunny, shaky Southern California have been living with a fairly new phenomena - watching the print media around which many of our lives revolve disintegrate before our very eyes.

ELECTRONIC IS THE CHOICE OF YOUTH
The entire industry is undergoing a cataclysmic shift, and not for the better. Electronic media, including blogs, have replaced the inky print media as the choice of many - especially younger - readers when they are actually looking for real news.

REGISTER SHRINKING
Here in Orange County we find the Orange County Register undergoing significant cutbacks as that fine, old newspaper struggles like most others to make a profit these days. It's a serious issue.

ZELL DESTROYING TRIBUNE COMPANIES
Of even greater concern to me is what's happening to the Los Angeles Times and it's subsidiary local newspapers in the Times Community Newspapers group, including our very own Daily Pilot. The Times is part of the Tribune Companies, which was purchased by Sam Zell last year. True to form, Zell and his minions are systematically going about some cosmetic trimming of the component assets before trying to unload the pieces for more than the sum of the total. It's a business model that has worked elsewhere in the past, but it's going to fail this time around.

ZELL - RHYMES WITH...
Zell, whose name rhymes with a place he's very likely to end up if you believe current and former Times staffers, tried to sweet-talk staff members in the early stages of his purge. It didn't take long, however, for his ham-handed cutting to take off. The Times newsroom - editors and reporters - is attempting to operate with half the staff it had a year ago!

JOHNSON GONE
I wrote in a recent entry about the departure last week of Daily Pilot publisher and General Manager, Tom Johnson. He walked away from a job he'd held for 15 years, 17 if you count a couple years as Associate Publisher. He was the heart and soul of the Daily Pilot and the six other newspapers he managed. His absence has left the remaining staff reeling.

LOBDELL'S VIEW
I was recently directed to a brand new blog by former Los Angeles Times newsman Bill Lobdell, who also was the editor of the Daily Pilot for many years. In his initial entry on the blog - "Lobdell's OC", HERE, he provides insight into the Los Angeles Times situation with the perspective only an insider can bring. I've also linked to Lobdell's blog over on the right side of this page, because I suspect his body of work is going to be "interesting", to say the least.

I FEEL THEIR PAIN
I agonize for my friends at the Daily Pilot and hope the slashing of staff will stop soon. Through all the turmoil that has been swirling around for many months they have continued to soldier on, trying to provide the best news coverage possible. In most cases, they have succeeded.

VIBRANT PRINT MEDIA ESSENTIAL
In my opinion, we need a strong, vibrant print news media, supplemented by innovative electronic siblings. If the print media just fades away we will be left with blogs like this as your source of news - a truly bad idea! Let's hope someone reads Lobdell's blog and decides that his ideas have merit - and moves forward to salvage what's left of the Times and others before they are gone for good.